Please note that the Greater New Orleans Green Party ceased operations after the floods of 2005. A new group is being organized in 2016 under the name Green Party of New Orleans. Find more information about the current effort at tiny.cc/gpnola, and feel free to browse this site (green.rox.com) which is being maintained as an historical record.

GNOGP Supports Gay Marriage

March 2004

It seems that with every passing day there is news of more people, all around the country, taking action to recognize the right of gays and lesbians to get married. The Greater New Orleans Green Party applauds these courageous individuals. We wish our local officials would show the same courage!

Everybody should have the right to get married. The sex of the partners should have no more bearing on their right to marriage than their race or religion.

The Green Party has always supported the broadest civil rights, including gay marriage. In 2003, our candidate Jason Neville included this issue as a key plank in his campaign for State Senate District 3.

We also support Jason West, the Green Party Mayor of New Paltz, New York, who has married 25 same-sex couples. He has been charged with solemnizing marriages without licenses. (Read his statement on the matter.)

Some, such as Democratic candidate John Kerry, favor civil unions for gay couples but are opposed to marriage. We feel that such half-measures are insulting, inadequate and ridiculous. People should not be relegated to second-class status based on their sexual orientation. The concept of "separate but equal" has been thoroughly discredited; let's not make that mistake again.

President Bush has endorsed an amendment to the United States constitution that would restrict marriage to people of opposite sex only. We oppose any such measure.

Steve Scalise, our state representative from Metairie, has filed House Bill 61, proposing that voters be asked to change the Louisiana Constitution to define marriage as consisting "only of the union of one man and one woman." The proposal would bar state officials and courts from recognizing same-sex marriages from other states.

We oppose amending our state constitution for this purpose for the same reason that we oppose amending the U.S. constitition. These documents should protect our freedoms, not take them away. Legislation to prevent same-sex marriage is as morally repugnant as the bad old laws which prevented interracial marriage.